Ashland, southern Oregon. Monday, September 28, 2026.

Lovely fall day with bold white billowy clouds and small, scattered negligee clouds hanging against a blue sky. Temperature crept out of the forties into the mid 70s F.

I got the first world blues this morning. Internet went out at 11:15 last night. I rebooted our system and went to bed. All looked good this morning but ‘lo, no Internet. I called our ISP, Ashland Home Net (HSN), to see what they could tell me. First tech said, “Reboot your router for me.” Pretty damn imperial about it, too. I did and we agreed I’d call back in ten minutes if it didn’t work.

Fifteen minutes later, I called HSN again. This tech was not the same as the first tech. He told me, “Oh, there’s an outage in the city. They’re working on it. Should be fixed in an hour. If you still don’t have a connection then, call back.”

Hour later, no connection, call back. Get the first tech who told me again, “I told you to just reset your router.”

I blew up on him and channeled my pissed-off senior NCO genes, which greatly changed his attitude. Anyway, to make this long story a little shorter, I decided I needed a new modem.

In parallel to this happening, my sister, Gina, took Mom to a doctor’s appointment as a follow up to the UTI that sent her to the hospital, keeping us up to date via texts. Mom has also been complaining of chest pains. EKG showed no issues with Mom’s heart or pace maker, but other test showed that yes, she still had a UTI. So, there’s more antibiotics scheduled, and an appointment with another doctor.

Gina took Mom clothes shopping, too, which was very nice of her.

Back here at home, it was our day to do Food & Friends delivery. However, my wife didn’t put it on the official house calendar, so we were double booked. We had noticed some slight leaking around the bathroom skylight. I’d scheduled a consultation for today for 11, which directly conflicted with the F&F timing. A friend volunteered to replace me so my wife could do the route and deliveries while I stayed home with the skylight folks.

Skylight folks, Andy and James, arrived at 11 and left at 11:30. Just flashing, Andy assured me. I’m waiting or the estimate to get that done. He says it’s minor work and can schedule it and do it done soon as I say go.

So, that was my morning. As I say, first world blues.

Later that day…(which is, yes, today…)

Went to the coffee shop. Researched routers. Went out and bought a new one. Came home, installed it. Everything except my Ooma VOIP linked up. I’m working on it.

My wife’s Food & Friends deliveries with her friend went fantastic! Everyone was home, and many were already at the door when she arrived. My wife said it was much better than when I go with her… *smile*

Later that same day…(which is, yes, still today..)

I was focused on software, settings for the new router, etc. Modem, cell phones, computers, and Roku all seamlessly connected. Terrific!

Our Ooma VOIP wouldn’t connect.

I’ve been an Ooma customer since 2008, and the unit I have is now ten years old. I thought that maybe its card had gone. No matter what I tried, I could not connect between the router and the Ooma telos. Lo, turned out to be the old ethernet cable was failing. With that replaced, all is up and running. Took hours of trying different paths, though. But, yes, done.

So ends my first world blues.

Today’s song is “Roadhouse Blues”. The Neurons began playing this 1970 song by The Doors when I rolled out of bed and told myself, “Let’s get this day rolling.” Bang, the song rolled through my morning mental music stream.

I hope your day treated you well, and you were able to avoid all kinds of blues, whether they were just simple first world complaints like mine today, or more serious blues.

Cheers